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Friday, April 17, 2009

2008-09 Playoff Predictions

Taking a brief look backward before moving forward with my predictions, in my 2008-09 Eastern Conference Preview I correctly picked six of the eight playoff teams, while I went seven for eight in my 2008-09 Western Conference Preview; my only blemish in the West was picking Phoenix over Denver, while in the East I chose Toronto and Washington over Atlanta and Chicago. The Suns have chronically underachieved ever since losing game one of last year's playoffs, while the Nuggets--simply by maintaining roughly the same overall strength after losing Allen Iverson and Marcus Camby but bringing in Chauncey Billups and Chris Andersen--slid past several Western powers who have been beset by injuries to key All-Star players (San Antonio, Houston, Utah, New Orleans). There is no way that the Raptors should have been this bad--they are essentially the Suns of the East in terms of underachievement--while injuries cost the Wizards not only Gilbert Arenas for longer than expected but also Brendan Haywood, Antonio Daniels (before he was traded) and Caron Butler. In my preview I called the Bulls "the East's 'mystery guest'" and said that in the best case scenario they could win as many as 45 games; that best case scenario came pretty close to happening. One pick that I just flat out got wrong was saying that the Hawks would fall short of making the playoffs; I thought that the East would improve overall (in terms of the record required to nab the eighth spot), so that the Hawks could possibly win more games than they did in 2008 and still miss the playoffs. What actually happened is that the Hawks improved from 37-45 to 47-35, while the win total of the eighth place team only increased by two.

Last season, I correctly picked five of the eight East playoff teams and seven of the eight West playoff teams; in 2006-07, I went seven for eight in the East and six for eight in the West.

In 2007-08, I correctly picked the outcome of 12 of the 15 playoff series and I correctly chose a Finals matchup of the Celtics versus the Lakers, but I wrongly predicted that the Lakers would win the championship. In 2006-07, I also correctly picked the outcome of 12 of the 15 playoff series and that year I correctly predicted before the playoffs began that the Spurs would beat the Cavs in the NBA Finals. In 2005-06, I went 10-5 but did not correctly identify either Finalist before the playoffs began. In 2004-05, I went 9-6 and correctly picked both Finalists before the playoffs began but incorrectly chose the Pistons to beat the Spurs. So, in four years of posting online series by series predictions I have a 43-17 record and have correctly picked both Finals participants before the playoffs began three times.

Here is my take on the first round matchups, what I think will happen after that and who I predict will win it all.

Eastern Conference First Round

#1 Cleveland (66-16) vs. #8 Detroit (39-43)

Season series: Cleveland, 3-1

Detroit can win if...their big men dominate the paint defensively and on the glass, if the Pistons keep LeBron James out of the paint by forcing him to shoot contested midrange jump shots and if the point guard combination of Rodney Stuckey-Will Bynum makes good decisions down the stretch.

Cleveland will win because...the Cavaliers are a more focused team that is better than the Pistons offensively and--most importantly--defensively. Also, LeBron James is the best player on either team by a wide margin and he figures to be the dominant force in the series. Cleveland's big man rotation of Zydrunas Ilgauskas-Anderson Varejao-Ben Wallace matches up well with Detroit's frontcourt, though Wallace's health status is a concern. If Wallace cannot play, though, the Cavs have an able veteran replacement in Joe Smith plus a youthful, energetic J.J. Hickson can also provide some quality minutes.

Other things to consider: Just three short years ago, the Pistons were the beast of the East and the young Cavs were trying to prove themselves against Detroit in the crucible of playoff competition. Detroit won in 2006, the Cavs beat the Pistons in a tough series the following year but this time around it should be a sweep for the Cavs. I offer a more detailed take on the recent Cleveland-Detroit rivalry in general and this series in particular in my newest CavsNews.com article.

#2 Boston (62-20) vs. #7 Chicago (41-41)

Season series: Boston, 2-1Chicago can win if...the Bulls defend and rebound well enough to get out and run, enabling them to score points in transition as opposed to having to face Boston's half court defense.

Boston will win because...the defending champions are a playoff tested team that is tougher than Chicago mentally and physically.

Other things to consider: The latest word out of Boston is that Kevin Garnett will miss the entire playoffs; there was an unintentional, dark humor quality to the juxtaposition of the headlines about Garnett's injury and Boston GM Danny Ainge's heart attack: fortunately, Ainge is expected to make a complete recovery. Clearly, losing Garnett is a devastating blow to Boston's chances of repeating. However, in the past two seasons the Celtics showed--at least during the regular season--that they could win a high percentage of games without Garnett, even against good teams. Although there is some validity to the comparison of this athletic Chicago team with the athletic Atlanta team that gave Boston fits in the first round of the playoffs last season, the Bulls do not have anyone who is as good as Joe Johnson. In the absolute worst case scenario for the Celtics, they will rely on home court advantage to advance by winning game seven but I really don't expect this series to be nearly as competitive as some pundits apparently think that it will be. I look forward to seeing Derrick Rose get his first taste of the playoffs.

#3 Orlando (59-23) vs. #6 Philadelphia (41-41)

Season series: Orlando, 3-0

Philadelphia can win if...the Sixers can single cover Dwight Howard, stay at home on the three point shooters and run for layups in the transition game after forcing misses.

Orlando will win because...even though the Sixers did a decent job versus Howard in the regular season (holding him to 15.7 ppg) the Magic still swept the season series; that is a pretty strong sign that even if the 76ers play as well as they can play they still are not likely to beat Orlando four times in seven games. The Magic are more playoff tested than the Sixers and that experience will come in handy down the stretch.

Other things to consider: Every year we hear about lower seeded teams that higher seeded teams supposedly "don't want to see." ESPN's Avery Johnson has already gone on record predicting that the Sixers will beat the Magic. While there have been some famous upsets in that vein (notably Denver over Seattle in 1994 and Golden State over Johnson's Dallas team in 2007), most of the time there are very good reasons that one team is at or below .500 while the other team won 50-plus games and enjoys home court advantage. It would be interesting if someone researched the history of teams that other teams supposedly "don't want to see" and figured out what the playoff winning percentages of those teams turned out to be; this cliche is used every year and usually turns out to be completely off target.

#4 Atlanta (47-35) vs. #5 Miami (43-39)

Season series: Atlanta, 3-1

Miami can win if...Dwyane Wade scores well over 30 ppg with a good shooting percentage and low turnover rate, Jermaine O'Neal provides a presence in the paint and rookies Michael Beasley and Mario Chalmers offer solid contributions.Atlanta will win because...even though the Heat like to get in the open court and run the Hawks are actually better equipped to play that way than the Heat are.

Other things to consider: This should be a fun series to watch as both teams push the ball up and down the court, with high flyers like Wade, Jamario Moon and Josh Smith providing numerous dunks from all angles. Due to Wade you have to give the Heat a puncher's chance to win a game in Atlanta but over the course of the entire series I expect Atlanta's overall depth and playoff experience to prevail. This series could easily go six or seven games, though, particularly if Miami's rookies Beasley and Chalmers are productive.

Western Conference First Round

#1 L.A. Lakers (65-17) vs. #8 Utah (48-34)

Season series: L.A., 2-1

Utah can win if...they find a way to match up with the Lakers' bigs in the paint, don't allow Kobe Bryant to completely get loose and figure out how to win at least one game on the road (unfortunately for Jazz fans, none of those three things seem likely to happen).

L.A. will win because...the Lakers are a bigger, deeper and more versatile team, Kobe Bryant is easily the best player on either team and the Lakers enjoy home court advantage, a big factor considering Utah's terrible struggles away from home not just this season but for the past couple years.

Other things to consider: The Jazz are a strange team because they are very physical offensively--setting screens and banging people around in the paint--but they are not particularly tough defensively or on the glass. Those two weaknesses are the source of Utah's road difficulties and are why this figures to be a short--yet competitive--series; by that I mean that I expect the Lakers to win in five games but that several of the games will probably be close. The likely scenario is that the Lakers will win one game in L.A. fairly comfortably and one game by a close margin, split the two games in Utah and then close out the series back in L.A. in game five.

#2 Denver (54-28) vs. #7 New Orleans (49-33)

Season series: Tied, 2-2

Denver can win if...the series goes seven games, because home court advantage is most significant in that deciding game. Overall, the most important things for the Nuggets to do are to stay focused defensively on a consistent basis, design/implement an effective plan to try to contain Chris Paul and make sure that Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith do not take too many bad shots.

New Orleans will win because...Chauncey Billups will struggle to stay in front of Chris Paul and no other Nugget will be able to deal with Paul either. I expect Paul to have a really big series. I think that the best strategy against him is to guard him one on one, stay at home on the shooters (and on Tyson Chandler rolling to the hoop for lob passes) and dare Paul to consistently score 30-35 points or more but I don't think that the Nuggets will be disciplined enough to effectively carry out such a plan.

Carmelo Anthony has shot .422 or worse from the field in four of his five career playoff series (all first round losses, none lasting more than five games), including .364 or worse in three of those series, and if his offense goes south again the Nuggets will not be able to score enough points to win this series.

Other things to consider: Other than perhaps Atlanta-Miami, this is the most intriguing first round series. Although the respective seedings of these teams whisper "mismatch" the reality is that Denver only won five more games than New Orleans and the Hornets were without the services of Peja Stojakovic and Tyson Chandler for significant portions of the season. When those two players were in the fold last season, the Hornets won 56 games and were the second seeded team in the West. Chandler just returned to action, while Stojakovic is trying to shake off the rust after being in and out of the lineup throughout the season. Neither player is likely to be 100% effective during this series but if they can make some kind of positive contribution that should be enough to push New Orleans over the top assuming that All-Stars Chris Paul and David West perform at a high level. I am not sold on the idea that Denver is an elite team, even though the Nuggets finished with the second best record in the West; I still think that their seeding is an artifact of how banged up most of the other top West teams were.

An interesting thing to watch in this series could be KHF: knucklehead factor. The Nuggets have three guys who are prone to losing control of their emotions and making bad plays at the most inopportune times: Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin. One or more of those guys could cost the Nuggets a game by taking poor shots, getting a technical foul, committing a flagrant foul and/or acting the fool in some other fashion.

Game one in this series is HUGE. If the Hornets can stroll into Denver and strip the Nuggets of the home court advantage that the Nuggets worked all season to get then it will be most interesting to see how Coach George Karl and the KHF crew respond. The team that wins game one wins NBA playoff series roughly 80% of the time and if the Hornets take a 1-0 lead I think that they can close out the series in six games. If the series lasts seven games then I expect that the Nuggets will ride the emotion of their home crowd and advance but I'm taking New Orleans in six.

#3 San Antonio (54-28) vs. #6 Dallas (50-32)

Season series: Tied, 2-2

Dallas can win if...Dirk Nowitzki has an MVP flashback and averages something like 30 ppg and 12 rpg, Jason Kidd plays Tony Parker to a standstill (or reasonably close to it) and Jason Terry has a big series.

San Antonio will win because...Tony Parker will run circles around whoever checks him and the Spurs will find a way to get more key defensive stops and rebounds than the Mavericks do.

Other things to consider: The Spurs will obviously miss Manu Ginobili during this postseason but assuming that Tim Duncan's creaky knees don't give out San Antonio has enough to get by Dallas.

#4 Portland (54-28) vs. #5 Houston (53-29)

Season series: Houston, 2-1

Houston can win if...the Rockets are able to keep the pace slow and establish Yao Ming as the dominant player in the series. Ron Artest and Shane Battier must contain Brandon Roy.

Portland will win because...the young Trail Blazers are a well balanced team, with a roster containing quality bigs, good shooters, good playmakers and good slashers. Portland's defense will force the Rockets away from their strengths and the Trail Blazers will score enough in transition--at least at home--to prevent Houston from clamping down defensively in the half court set.

Other things to consider: On the final day of the season, the Rockets still had a chance to finish second in the West but they blew a double digit lead versus Dallas and after all of the other dominoes fell into place they had plummeted to the fifth seed. No matter what anyone says, that is psychologically devastating. There has been a lot of talk about how good the Rockets have been since Tracy McGrady was shut down for the season but what has actually happened is that the Rockets replaced a hobbled McGrady with a healthy Ron Artest. The Rockets gained a lot defensively in that "transaction" but they lost ballhandling, playmaking and clutch shooting. ESPN's Jamal Mashburn rightly noted that a big part of the reason for the collapse versus Dallas was that the Rockets missed McGrady's scoring and playmaking; they had no one who could either feed Yao Ming in the post or else create a good shot and instead they had Artest jacking up poor shots from all angles.

This looks like a series that could go seven games and the Blazers enjoy the trump card of playing that seventh game in Portland. I am a little leery about picking such a young team to win but the flip side of that is that the veteran Rockets have yet to prove that they can get out of the first round, either.

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As mentioned in the Denver-New Orleans preview, home court advantage in general and game one in particular are very important; the game one winner almost always wins an NBA playoff series, so that is the best opportunity for the underdog team to seize home court advantage. It gets progressively harder to win on the road during a series and game sevens on the road are generally automatic death unless the underdog team has a cast of grizzled veterans. Last year, the game one winner captured seven of the eight first round series and six of the seven subsequent series. These initial games on Saturday and Sunday are very, very important. Sometimes you hear underdog teams talk about finding a way to get a split in the first two road games but what they really need to do is win game one and put immediate pressure on the favorite.

If these first round series go as I have predicted, we will see second round matchups of Cleveland-Atlanta, Boston-Orlando, L.A.-Portland and San Antonio-New Orleans. The Hawks will not cause the Cavs nearly as many problems this season as they caused the Celtics last year. If Kevin Garnett were healthy then I'd take Boston over Orlando with no second thoughts. Even sans Garnett, the Celtics are good enough to beat the Magic if they use the right game plan and play together; the way to beat Orlando is to single cover Dwight Howard, stay at home on the three point shooters and dare Howard to produce 30-35 points or more (somewhat like the game plan to beat the Hornets involves daring Chris Paul to dominate by scoring). Celtics bigs like Kendrick Perkins and Leon Powe cannot stop Howard but they should be able to contain him enough so that the Celtic perimeter players do not have to leave the three point shooters open. One problem for the Celtics, particularly as they advance deeper in the playoffs, is that their bench is much weaker this year than it was last year (and Garnett's injury further depletes the bench by making one of the reserves become a starter). I am still not a fan of the Stephon Marbury acquisition and if he ends up having to play significant minutes his poor defense and/or erratic shooting and ballhandling could cost Boston a crucial game. Nevertheless, with game seven at home in their back pockets, I expect the Celtics to beat the Magic. However, without Garnett the Celtics have no chance to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in a seven game series; in fact, I would have picked the Cavs this year even if Garnett were 100%.

Despite not being a playoff team for several years, the Trail Blazers have manufactured in their minds some kind of rivalry with the defending Western Conference Champion L.A. Lakers. The Blazers do very well against the Lakers in Portland but to beat them in the postseason the Blazers will have to win at least one game in L.A. I say "at least" because I suspect that Kobe Bryant takes L.A.'s Portland losing streak very personally and that he will see to it that it comes to an end, in which case the Blazers would then need two wins in L.A. in order to advance--and that is not going to happen.

Last year, I correctly picked the Spurs to beat the Hornets because I expected Manu Ginobili to be the X factor and that is exactly what happened as Ginobili scored a game-high 26 points in San Antonio's game seven victory. The Hornets then signed James Posey to be a "Ginobili stopper" but it now turns out that Ginobili is out of commission for the playoffs. Even though the Hornets have a much worse seed than they did last year, they are in a better bracket (in terms of matchups) and I expect them to face the Lakers in the Conference Finals--but that is where their dream postseason will end, as the Lakers will triumph in six games.

For quite some time we seemed to be heading toward a Cleveland-L.A. Finals showdown, a "clash of the generations" between LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Last year, I wrote that it would be great to see a Finals matchup between the game's two best players and I think that is exactly what we will see this June. Bryant still has a more complete skill set than James does but James deserves much respect for the way that he has ruthlessly eliminated every weakness (free throw shooting, three point shooting, defense) from his game except for one (midrange jump shot). The Cavs are a better defensive team than the Lakers and in a pivotal March stretch the Cavs seized the overall home court advantage from the Lakers; that defensive edge and the home court advantage are the two reasons that I expect that the Cavs will beat the Lakers in the 2009 NBA Finals.

Whether James claims his first NBA title or Bryant shuts up his critics by winning a championship without Shaquille O'Neal, the sad thing is that the "loser" in the Finals matchup will likely be bombarded with a lot of unfair and inaccurate media criticism; if James and the Cavs fall short then James will be accused of lacking a killer instinct because he did not triumph even with home court advantage, while if Bryant and the Lakers are denied for the second year in a row then all of the old, stupid comparisons of Bryant with Michael Jordan and O'Neal will once again be revisited. The truth is that both the Cavs and the Lakers have had historically great seasons but they did it in the same year and there can only be one champion. Whatever happens, I will celebrate the accomplishment of whoever wins instead of casting aspersions on this year's runner up.

18 Comments:

You will love this: http://www.hooptropolis.com/2009/04/chauncey-and-grand-narratives-of-mvp.html

"So as the actual numbers show, the Nugs are not actually that much better than last year ...

So why is Billups getting all this credit? Cause giving him the cred makes a nice little story. Heady pass first point guard replaces the selfish gunner and his team takes off. And people love those kind of stories."

First, your blog is among my bookmarks and i enjoy reading your writings. They helped me improve my English skills as well. But sometimes you become too repetitive, right? For instance, you wrote that LeBron James eliminated three of his weaknesses in almost all of your recent articles. Okay, it's true but regular readers will likely be bored of reading the same stuff again and again.

Second, you are fully mistaken that Celtics roll past Magic sans Garnett. It will not happen and Orlando will take care of the "Green Tomatoes" in 6. Heck, i even expect them make a seven game series against the "mighty" Cavs.

Last but not the least, Cleveland is clearly a better defensive team than the Lakers but Californian guys undeservedly are critized on the defensive end since this season they showed that the Lakers can get the necessary stops once they had enough commitment. Better yet,as Bynum is back in full force, Cavs don't have the sufficient personnel to contain the seven footers of the Lakers but Kobe and/or Ariza will slow LeBronze down at times. There is roughly one thing that can prevent the Lakers from winning it all: referees which apparently have been under the influence of the fans in Cleveland.

This is not a commentary but a fact; for instance, Lebron James though being in lots of action on the floor has been in a foul trouble rarely, while on the other hand fouls were generously called against Kobe Bryant, who is hands down the better defender.

Anyways, in short, this is definitely a year of purple and gold, and i expect the Lakers to reach the title by losing 5 games at most. I don't know whether basketball gods exist or not, but they do, LA should be celebrating in June.

I think that what LeBron has accomplished is very significant and bears repeating. Not that I will say the same thing in every single article but in each case that I mentioned this it was crucial to the point that I was making.

I didn't say that the Celtics will "roll by" Orlando; I said that the Celtics will win because they "have game seven in their back pockets." In other words, sans Garnett I expect that this would be a tough series for Boston.

The Lakers are capable of playing good defense and they do so in spurts but the Cavs play good defense night in and night out; the Lakers do not have that level of commitment on defense. If you have been following my work all season then you know that I have spoken to members of the Lakers coaching staff and they have real concerns about the team's defense.

I know that there have been some things written about LeBron rarely getting in foul trouble but I don't know that this in and of itself proves that the refs favor Cleveland.

The Lakers are certainly capable of winning the championship and they match up better with Cleveland this year than they did with Boston last year but I still expect the Cavs to defeat the Lakers in the Finals.

in the hawks-heat preview, you wrote that the hawks are better-equipped in the open court than the "bulls" are. i assume you mean it's the heat, but if in case you mean something else...

but more importantly, i just noticed, in the last three previews, you changed your format of "can win if" to "will win if". is that intentional? because those last three match-ups are more closely contested or not as decisive as the others? if you did that on purpose, nice, and if i missed that, yup, i missed something there. but if you didn't mind that, well, i guess it still works the same, because houston-portland, dallas-san antonio, and denver-new orleans are harder to call than, say, los angeles-utah and cleveland-detroit. additionally, one had to observe like i did on that to get that.

Although I would like to claim a deeper meaning behind the things that you noticed, those were actually simply typographical errors that I have corrected since you pointed them out; I meant to use the same format for each of the previews but somehow the template apparently got garbled along the way.

One can certainly make a case that the Lakers will win the title but it is more than a bit extreme to say "There is no way I can see the Cavs beating the Lakers in a 7 game series." The Cavs won 66 games and own home court advantage throughout the playoffs. Two years ago, LeBron James led the Cavs to a series victory against a seasoned Detroit team that enjoyed home court advantage and last year LeBron led the Cavs to a seventh game against the Boston team that ultimately won the championship. LeBron has certainly proven his playoff chops. If you had simply said that the Lakers would have a better chance this year against Cleveland than they did last year against Boston then I would have agreed with you completely.

While I respect your opinion I just can't see it. You've heard the expression styles make fights. The problem that the cavs play a lot of iso basketball rely on Lebron to distribute. They are near the bottom of the league when it comes to team assists. This plays heavily into the lakers favor as they have eaten iso teams alive this season. That includes Cleveland.

The Cavs are a better defensive team than the Lakers and the Cavs will have home court advantage against any playoff opponent. That recipe helped Boston to win the championship last season and I expect it to help Cleveland to win the title this season. Could the Lakers beat the Cavs in the NBA Finals? Sure they could but the smart bet at this stage is to say that Cleveland has the edge. It makes no sense to say that you cannot even envision a scenario in which Cleveland would win, because we saw this exact scenario play out in last year's Finals.

You are of course correct that Kobe is better than any one player who the Cavs have faced in previous playoff series with Detroit and Boston but if the Cavs throw five defenders at Kobe a la Boston and every other Laker disappears (as happened in last year's Finals) then the Lakers will not beat the Cavs. The Cavs are not quite as physical as last year's Celtics were, so I would expect a Cavs-Lakers series to go seven games--but that seventh game will be in Cleveland. It is possible to win a game seven on the road but if you look up the history it is very difficult to do.

While I agree that a potential 7th game in Cleveland would prove to be a daunting task for the Lakers, you seem to forget about another possible scenario.

It is highly possible that the Lakers can steal at least one of the first two games in Cleveland and effectively take HCA away from the Cavs. If they manage to do so, (and I would wager that they in fact will)then the Cavs may not get back to Cleveland for a game 7.

As you so astutely pointed out the Cavs are not the defensive team in terms of shear physicallity that the Celtics were last season. Their bigs are not a force in the paint defensively like the Celtics bigs were either. Their biggest strength defensively is LeBron playing safety and causing havoc. Problem is, that would leave Delonte West or Sasha Pavlovhich trying to guard Kobe. If that fails then they have to take their greatest defensive asset and put him on Kobe which basically makes it a game of my supporting cast vs your's.

The Lakers have multiple defenders to throw at Mo Williams and can even put 6'8" Trevor Ariza on him while Kobe checks Bron with Help from one of two 7 footers.

So for the Lakers the game plan is simple, force LeBron to shoot jumpers, contain Mo Williams and keep Varejo off of the offensive boards. The Lakers have the personnel to do it. Lakers in 5 or 6 games Max. Not because the Cavs aren't a great team, they are, but they just don't match up well with L.A.

While the Lakers are certainly capable of winning one of the first two games in Cleveland, the Cavs could very well return the favor in L.A. It is very difficult for the home team to sweep the middle three games in the 2-3-2 format. The Cavs have won road playoff games in Detroit and elsewhere in the past few seasons, so the reality is that to beat the Cavs is a seven game series this year it will probably be necessary to win two games in Cleveland.

I expect a Cavs-Lakers series to be close and I certainly would not be shocked if the Lakers won. I'm just saying that the percentages favor Cleveland now. If both teams reach the Finals, injuries or other factors could sway my opinion in a different direction by that time.

Not that this is a major factor either way, but I don't think that Ariza will spend a lot of time being assigned to guard Mo Williams. Ariza mainly guards small forwards and shooting guards. The Lakers acquired him to guard guys like Pierce and LeBron, not Mo Williams.

As I have mentioned many times, the midrange jump shot is LeBron's one remaining weakness--but for that to be the key factor in a hypothetical Cleveland-L.A. Finals matchup, the Lakers would have to keep LeBron out of the paint and that brings us right back to L.A.'s defense, which has been sporadic throughout the season.

You are correct that the teams that have forced LeBron to shoot midrange jumpers--07 Spurs, 08 Celtics--are the last two teams to beat the Cavs in the playoffs.

I suspect that you in your mind don't really believe that the Cavs can beat the lakers but because I respect your work so much I will take you at face value.

Now the thing we can agree on is that the Spurs and Celtics defenses were very disiplined vs the cavs. We know the lakers are capable of playing LeBron the same way as they have shown in the two previous match ups. But I don't know if they are disiplined enough to keep it up for an entire series.

The formula to beat Cleveland is the same, though. Unless of course Lebron somehow becomes a knock down jump shooter over night.

Your opening statement is bizarre. Why do you think that I am writing something that I don't believe? What possible reason would I have to do that? I think that the Cavs and Lakers are fairly evenly matched but the Cavs are the better defensive team and they own home court advantage. Those are the reasons I think that the Cavs will beat the Lakers in the NBA Finals. Could the Lakers win? Sure. Would I be shocked if the Lakers win? No, but I still think that Cleveland is the more logical pick. Last year I convinced myself that the Lakers could run their Bryant-Gasol screen/roll play versus Boston just as well as they did versus the Spurs and Jazz but of course things did not turn out that way. Cleveland is not as physical as Boston was last year but the Cavs are more physical defensively now than the Spurs and Jazz.

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"It's not nuclear physics. You always remember that. But if you write about sports long enough, you're constantly coming back to the point that something buoys people; something makes you feel better for having been there. Something of value is at work there...Something is hallowed here. I think that something is excellence."--Tom Callahan